Steal My Sunshine (14 page)

Jo and I hold hands in the darkness. We say a million things without words: I'm scared and I'm with you and this is Hell.

But we know it's not really Hell. There's a place worse than this not far from here where girls are sent when they cannot be saved. It's called the asylum.

More weeks pass. James doesn't come, Caro doesn't come, Georgie probably doesn't even know where I am.

I'm working a mangle next to Jo. We're both fatter, but Jo is the only one smiling about it. Somehow, she seems more defined and sure of herself the bigger she gets, while I feel I've lost the edges of myself, like I'm disintegrating into this place. Jo smiles and has spirit and I see the ghost of myself in her. Essie isn't here any more.

The air is thick with humidity. The laundry has a corrugated iron roof and tall sash windows, and the sun beats down. The Sisters are busy at the other side of the room, dealing with a girl who has scalded herself.

‘Who put you here?' I whisper to Jo.

‘Does it matter?' she asks, but then she raises her eyes to heaven and smiles. ‘I came myself.'

Jo whispers a new part of her story. She left school five years ago when her mother was ill, to work in her father's chippie ten or so miles from here. She makes jokes about dying while she's having the baby and she wants me to make sure they put ‘What I wouldn't give for a penny onion' on her headstone. She says right now she'd sell her soul for a wally – that's a kind of pickle, she tells me. Jo swears she'll always smell of beef fat no matter how many times the Sisters douse her in holy water. She wears enough smiles for me and everyone else in here.

When she gets out, she'll go back home and work with her father again. She says the baby will sleep in the same drawer Jo herself slept in, under the till, and grow fat on the best chips in Queensland. I can come too, she says.

This is when I remember that her story won't be coming true. The babies are not ours to take. I had it from Theresa – we nurse them for six months at the most; the baby she had has already left. Jo won't hear of any of this. She says, ‘You can call my dad Jack when you meet him. He doesn't like formalities.' But she won't talk much about her mother except to say that her little sister Nancy does all the nursing. I tell her about Georgie but skip the rest.

I don't know what to say to her when she talks about the babies. I only want to get out of here. The two native girls got out of a window last week and made it to the station, but they were brought back. We didn't see them for days.

I used to imagine sliding down the big drain in the floor and escaping through the pipes like a dirty rat. Or flying up the chimney and straight out into the sky like a bird. But I can't like this – not with this lump, this huge weight that's as much of a prison as the gates around this place.

I am Audrey, and I'm never going to get out of here.

 

 

 

Essie got up and leaned heavily with one hand on the arm of her chair.

‘That's not the end,' said Chloe.

‘Not at all, darling. But I'm tired and I need a drink. That's enough for one day.' She used my shoulder as another support as she made her way to the kitchen.

‘Wait, I'll get your drink,' I said, and darted past Essie. ‘It's okay, Essie, I'll bring it to you.'

‘I can manage. I want a strong one.'

‘I'll make it strong. I know how you like it.'

She leaned on the counter, and her smile and her eyes looked so tired. Chloe appeared behind her.

‘It's nearly two,' I said.

‘Yep, I've got work. Essie, seriously, you're amazing.' Chloe's words made Essie stand taller. ‘You coming, Han?'

‘I might stay. Essie?'

‘No, you go,' she said, and took the glass from my hands.

‘But I can't go without . . . I want to know the rest.'

‘And I promise I'll tell you, but on my terms, Hannah. It's my story. You go with your friend now.'

I felt dismissed. Chloe put her arm around me. ‘Come on, you can walk me to the bar.'

‘Look after her,' Essie told Chloe. They both looked at me as if I were breakable.

‘I'm fine!'

They smiled and Chloe rested her head on my shoulder for a second before we walked towards the front door.

‘Wish I wasn't working,' said Chloe. ‘You're lucky to have a night to chill out at home, Han. A shift at the bar wipes me out.'

‘You're young to be working in a bar,' Essie said. ‘Mind you, I was young too, wasn't I?'

They looked at each other as if they'd shared something and I wanted to shout out how stupid that was but the words in my head made me sound like a brat. Chloe loved that bar. She was just trying to suck up to Essie, but why?

‘What will you be doing at home, Hannah?' said Essie.

‘Um,
The Notebook
's on, I'll probably watch that.'

‘Would I like it?'

‘I reckon you would, Essie.' Chloe was giggling but it seemed like she felt something genuine for my grandmother. ‘It's pretty romantic. Anyway, good to meet you. You're just like Hannah described, only better.'

‘You too,' said Essie. ‘And I'll see you very soon, I hope.'

 

When we turned onto Beaconsfield Parade I tried to steer us down towards the beach path. I needed the wide open stretch of bay before I had to head home on the tram to get ready for tonight.

‘Stay up this way,' said Chloe. She looped her finger into the pocket of my shorts and put her other arm around me. ‘It stinks down there.'

‘To you, maybe. I like it. I can't believe you'd rather walk next to the traffic.'

‘I can't believe you'd rather watch turds bobbing up and down on the waves.' She laughed and I did too, trying to make myself feel close to her again. It felt like it was my fault that we kept drifting apart, and it was the least I could do considering what tonight was.

 

When I got home, Sam had his feet on the coffee table, his dirty sports socks big and puffy like oven mitts. He was eating jam on toast and watching kids' TV.

‘Where's Mum? And why are you watching cartoons?'

‘I suppose you're so mature now you've got a 
date
or whatever it is.'

‘That's none of your business.'

‘I know him, remember?'

‘Not any more.'

‘He's still Evan Hatcher, prize dickhead. He only wants to go out with you because he thinks you're too young and stupid to stop him from doing exactly what he wants.' He pushed an entire triangle of toast into his mouth and chewed it forcefully.

‘I'm not stupid. How would you know what anyone wants anyway? You're a selfish prick.'

Sam turned up the volume.

‘And I said
where's Mum
?'

‘Bed. She's been there all day.'

‘Why? What about the potter's wheel?'

‘She says that's finished. Look, why don't you talk to her? I'm not the bloody messenger.' He gave me daggers again.

‘As if I've been able to get near her with you in the way. You're loving it.'

He calmly gave me the finger. I knew that's all I would get – he'd never crack, I'd end up in tears and he'd take it as some kind of victory.

Outside Mum's door was a full cup of tea with milk scum on the top, a cut-up apple, turning brown, and some marmalade on toast curling up like autumn leaves. These were gifts from Sam. I pictured him leaving them there for her.

When I came out of my room hours later, Sam's untouched gifts were still there. I thought about how that might feel to him. At least he was trying. I hadn't brought Mum anything, hadn't said comforting things or asked her if I could help in some way. I felt sick at the thought that the distance between them and me was my fault, not Mum's or Sam's.

Sam was still on the sofa, his damp hair and lack of socks evidence of a shower, but everything else the same. Sam muted the TV and sat up as if he'd been waiting for me to come in. ‘Where are you meeting him?'

‘Thought you knew everything.' I kept busy trying to find things I might need and putting them in my bag: lip balm, purse, keys, mobile; I picked up a book for something to do in case Evan didn't show up at all.

‘Just tell me, Han. I'm not going to follow you. I'd just feel better if I knew where you were going.'

‘Why would I be interested in making you feel better? You don't give two shits about me.' I didn't like the way he was making me feel even more nervous about the date. But I was confused; he looked deflated. I couldn't tell if he was setting me up for a fall and I didn't know
how
to stop arguing with him.

‘I swear I'm not being an arse this time,' he said.

‘He said something about a gig, okay?'

‘You don't sound very excited about it. Why are you even going? Stay here. I'll order a pizza.'

I didn't want Sam to see the indecision on my face so I turned into the kitchen. Staying would have been easier. There was an element of the unknown about staying, with our new messed-up family life, but it was an unknown I'd been dealing with so far. What if tonight was a disaster in every way?

Sam turned the volume up. ‘He's a wanker anyway.'

‘Get lost!' I stormed towards him, my bag over my shoulder ready to smack him if I had to. ‘And he's a nicer brother to Chloe than you are to me. Just because you've got nothing to do but make cups of tea for Mum since you decided to become Dad, don't take it out on the rest of us. I've got a life, thanks.'

I slammed out of the house in tears. We didn't get along and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Sam had always hated Chloe. But it wasn't just that; he hated my taste in music, my clothes – I was used to it – so what did it matter if he didn't like Evan? I
loved
Evan. I'd loved him for as long as I could remember. I'd hidden it, even though I could hardly breathe when I was in the same room as him. Now maybe I didn't have to hide. Maybe it would be the one thing in my life that would work out. Maybe it'd make the other stuff matter less.

 

It was an old tram back to St Kilda, that swayed and jolted all the way down Glenferrie Road. It went past flower shops, hairdressers, houses that sprawled behind tall iron gates; past a football ground and a tennis club, across a railway line and past an old milk bar – all the landmarks Dad had dotted on the map for me a couple of years ago. I hadn't looked at that map for a long time; the journey was as much a part of me now as any cell in my body.

The tram turned right so the low evening sun hit my window. I closed my eyes and thought of Dad in his hotel. It had only been a few days, but the distance between us seemed a wide and cold place. I had to make myself stop thinking about that pain; I had to stop looking back.

Essie had crossed several oceans on her own at my age; her family had sent her away, and as far as I could tell she'd never gone back home. She'd survived all that, and life in that terrible place, and still the story was unfinished. I couldn't wait to hear the rest – about having Mum in the convent and how they managed to get out, how they'd ended up in Sydney first of all, like in the painting, and finally in Melbourne. I had no idea how much of Essie's story Mum knew – maybe she didn't know the first thing about Essie's life, and maybe it would bring them together again if she did.

But then I remembered James. What if Mum didn't know that her father was really someone else? Was that the secret Essie was telling me, and what was I supposed to do with it? There was still so much to know. The thought of being the person who could help fix our messed-up family gave me butterflies. But what if I made things worse?

The road through Balaclava was quiet; the bagel shop Dad had loved to go to was closed. But then I saw some Jewish families walking together, maybe coming back from the synagogue. The men wore hats and their sons wore kippas; girls that didn't look much older than me were pushing prams, and small children walked obediently next to them. The girls were in long skirts and several of them wore wigs, too.

All of those rituals and rules seemed alien to me. Mum and Dad never talked about religion, except to say that we had to respect everyone else's right to practise it and try to ignore it ourselves because it was nothing to do with us. But ignoring it didn't always seem possible.

Essie couldn't ignore it all those years ago. She'd had to kneel and pray and do everything the nuns had ordered her to do; what she'd wanted for her life hadn't counted for anything. The injustice of it felt like part of me now, and I wanted so badly to be stronger and less afraid in my life – it seemed like the least I could do for Essie, when she'd survived terrible things and I hadn't faced a single struggle until Dad left.

I got off the tram in front of the gaping mouth of Mr Moon at Luna Park, and took a long look along the bay towards the Hatchers' bar where Chloe would still be on her shift. Above the water there were thin clouds that looked like wisps blown across the sky by children with straws.